Documentary pitches about alleged crimes against humanity by the former Brazilian government led by Jair Bolsonaro and queer encounters in Mexico’s hypermasculine rodeo culture are among the line-up at the 25th edition of Hot Docs Forum running April 30-May 1 in Toronto.
The forum will award two cash prizes: a minimum of C$25,000 (USD 18,537) funded by members of Hot Docs first look, the select access programme for investors in documentary film; and the C$10,000 (USD 7,415) CMF-Hot Docs Forum Canadian Pitch Prize in partnership with the Canada Media Fund to support production and completion of the best Canadian pitch.
Twenty-one filmmakers, 15 of whom are women and 11 of whom are BIPOC, will pitch 19 projects from 18 countries for co-production financing to a roundtable of commissioning editors, fund representatives, financiers, and members of the documentary community.
A wild card pitch will also be chosen live at the Form taking place at Toronto’s Hart House on both days. The Forum is part of Hot Docs Festival 2024 running April 25-May 5.
Projects include director Ashley Da-Lê Duong’s Ba’s Book from Intuitive Pictures Inc. (Can), in which a man writes a memoir to his daughter about his experiences of the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution; and Mauricio Monteiro Filho’s Reckoning from the UK’s Insight Film Ltd. And Brazil’s Come on Die Young Films about a federal prosecutor’s investigation into alleged crimes against humanity by the ousted Bolsonaro government against the Yanomami people of the northern Amazon.
The roster includes Anna Bogoliubova’s Autumn Of The Patriarch from Piraya Film (Nor), Little Big Story (Fr), IV Films (Fin), and Nukleus Film (Cro), exploring the survival strategies of people who live inside Vladimir Putin’s Russia; and Rebecca Zweig and Efraín Mojica’s Jaripeo from Jaripeo Documentary LLC (USA) and BHD Films (Mex), which follows two rancheros in Mexico’s hypermasculine rodeo culture of Michoacán rife with hidden queer encounters as they navigate desire, machismo, and mass migration from one season to the next.
Pitches will last seven minutes and will be followed by eight minutes of live feedback. In some cases, pitches can receive immediate financial commitments.
Confirmed participating decision-makers include A24, Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, Amazon MGM Studios, ARTE France, BBC Storyville, CBC/Radio-Canada, Doha Film Institute, EBS Korea, ESPN, SBS Australia, and Sundance Institute.
Selected projects will also partake in Hot Docs Deal Maker, an exclusive one-on-one pitch meeting programme which includes an additional 40 projects to be announced on March 20.
Dorota Lech, Industry programmer and Forum producer, noted that the 2023 edition awarded more than C$78,000 (USD 57,835) in cash prizes and said the upcoming edition offered a timely programme in an age ”when politics cannot be separated from art and vice versa”.
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